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Thanksgiving comes and goes, and as soon as the roasting pan is tucked away until next year, Ian jumps on the Christmas bandwagon.
“It’s not even December yet,” Mickey tells him, lounging in bed and watching Ian tap around on his phone.
“So?” Ian doesn’t even blink, scrolling through the Black Friday Amazon deals. “It’s never too early to start buying presents.”
“Gonna get me something?” Mickey asks.
“Already got yours.”
“Bullshit.”
“I did.”
“Where’d you hide it?”
“Not here.”
Mickey hums. “Smart.”
Ian keeps scrolling, tapping into the Christmas decorations category. “We need to get some of this stuff.”
“For what?”
“For the apartment,” Ian says, reading the reviews on a bulk set of string lights. “We gotta decorate.”
“Thanksgiving was fucking—yesterday.”
“Whatever,” Ian says, closing out of the app. “We’ll do it later.”
And that’s how Mickey finds himself in the Walmart parking lot on Sunday afternoon, following his husband into the store.
Ian grabs a cart that Mickey ends up pushing, hunched over and leaning his forearms across the bar as he follows Ian up and down the aisles. They grab a few essentials they’ve been needing first—deodorant, a five pack of black t-shirts, dish soap—then make their way into the back corner of the store where all the Christmas décor is laid out.
“Jesus Christ,” Mickey mutters, passing a display of a ten-foot inflatable Santa meant for a front lawn or a roof. He’s never been happier to live in an apartment.
Ian picks a starting point, seemingly at random, pulling the front of the carriage into an aisle where the shelves are lined with boxes and boxes of variations on the same thing.
“Lights,” Ian says, grabbing a box and tossing them in the cart. “Perfect.”
Mickey reads the label. 100-Count Multi-Color Incandescent Mini Christmas String Lights, 21 ft.
Ian throws two more boxes in the cart.
“We need more than one?” Mickey asks.
“I mean, yeah?” Ian, says, unsure. “Probably? We can return whatever we don’t use.”
Mickey eyes them skeptically. “Where are these lights even going, anyway?”
“On the tree,” Ian says, like it’s a foregone conclusion. “And maybe in our bedroom? Strung up on the walls like the ones in our room at the old house, like last year.”
Mickey scratches his eyebrow.
Ian walks down the aisle, still mesmerized by the light selection. “But maybe we get the white lights for that,” he says, picking up a box almost identical to the ones in the cart. “Then we could leave them up all year long.”
“Like there’s someone that’s gonna make us take the other ones down come January?”
Ian smiles. “Fair point.” He holds up two boxes, looks back and forth between them. Then he looks at Mickey. “You want the multi-colored ones for the bedroom?”
Mickey blinks. “I really don’t give a shit.”
“Fine.” Ian tosses the white lights into the cart as well.
They keep going down all the aisles.
Ian grabs a red plaid tree skirt that Mickey doesn’t totally hate, and a box of red and silver plastic ornaments to hang on the tree. He picks out silver tinsel to go with it too, which Mickey eyes apprehensively, but doesn’t say anything about when Ian puts it in the cart.
But when they get to the corner display of fake trees of every size, shape, and color, Ian walks right by it.
“Where you goin’?” Mickey asks, stopping the carriage in front of the display.
Ian slows down, looks at him over his shoulder. “To look at the wreaths. We should get one for our front door.”
“You walked right by the trees, man,” Mickey explains, as if Ian somehow missed the enormous display of plastic pine needles. “Come on. We gotta pick one out.”
Ian hesitates. “You want a fake tree?”
Mickey’s brow pinches. “You don’t?”
“I’ve always kinda wanted a real one,” Ian says with a shrug, hands shoved in his sweatshirt pockets. “Couldn’t afford one before, but we can now, so…”
Mickey scratches his brow with his thumb nail. “You wanna bring a real, living tree into the apartment.”
“Yeah.”
Mickey huffs out a breath.
He stares at the cart filled with Christmas decorations, at the aisles around them lined with even more. It’s a lot to take in all at once, a lot to think about buying when a few years ago they couldn’t even afford wrapping paper. He knows they have the money for it, he’s not worried about that, per say, but it’s still a lot to adjust to.
He glances over at the fake trees, the one thing they’ve always seemed to have between the two of them at Christmas, and rubs at the back of his neck.
“Fine,” he says quickly, locking his eyes on the wreath display a few aisles down and pushing the cart right past Ian.
“Mick.” Ian grabs his arm. “Hey, wait.”
Mickey stops, thumbs at his nose.
“Do you not—” Ian lets go of Mickey’s arm and moves to stand next to him. He asks, quietly, “Do you not want to do this?”
No, it’s not that, not exactly, but Mickey doesn’t know how to articulate what he wants to say, so he just stands there and says nothing, not even really looking at Ian.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” Ian says in one big rush. “I—”
He reaches out, wraps his hand around Mickey’s wrist.
Mickey looks up at him, hesitant.
“It’s your home too,” Ian says, and it’s so, so gentle, too soft for the middle of this busy as fuck Walmart, but that doesn’t stop him. He traces the bony part of Mickey’s wrist with his thumb. “I probably should have asked before I started assuming shit about what we were gonna do with it.”
Mickey’s face softens. “It’s not that I don’t wanna do it,” he says slowly, choosing his words. “It’s just… a lot. All at once.” He winces. “Fuck, that sounds stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Ian tells him. He scans his face, pauses. “You need a minute?”
“Maybe.”
Ian nods. He keeps running his thumb over Mickey’s wrist, slow and soothing
Mickey takes a breath. He’s not panicking, he’s not having an anxiety attack, he just needs a minute to wrap his head around it. That’s all.
So much in their lives has changed in the past few years. Sometimes it feels like he blinked and he was been transported to another universe, one far, far away from the life he lived as a closeted kid on the southside.
He’s buying holiday shit with his husband, for fuck’s sake, and they’re not even planning on stealing anything.
It just kind of hits him, in moments like this. That he’s allowed to have all of this now.
That he’s allowed to have the things he wants.
As if reading his mind, Ian squeezes his wrist and says, “What do you want to do?”
Mickey looks at him. Loves him.
“Fuck it,” he says, blowing out his breath. “Yeah, let’s get a real tree.”
Ian smiles, this slow crawling thing that tugs at the corner of his mouth. “You wanna?”
“Yeah.”
Ian leans in and kisses him, right there in the middle of Walmart.
He’s grinning when he pulls back. “You know they don’t sell those here, right?”
“No shit.” Mickey rolls his eyes. “Let’s get the rest of the stuff we need here, and maybe we can get a tree on the way home.”
Ian walks backwards, slowly pulling the cart towards the wreaths. “I think they’re selling them in the high school parking lot. Raising money for the Boy Scouts or something like that.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Mickey Milkovich, Boy Scouts supporter.”
Mickey tries to trip Ian with the front wheel of the shopping cart, and Ian laughs.
They grab a tree stand and a wreath and keep making their way up and down the aisles.
Ian picks out two kinds of wrapping paper, one that’s red with green trees, and one with Snoopy in a Santa hat printed all over it because he thought it was funny. Mickey picks out a sheet of snowmen themed gift tags to slap on all the Gallagher family gifts they will inevitably buy between now and Christmas.
They throw a few rolls of tape in the cart too.
Doubling back, they grab even more string lights because Mickey suggests hanging them on the half walls out on the balcony. Ian’s almost positive their building manager will yell at them for it—even with the lights on the inside, just because she’s like that—but he doesn’t care. He smiles when Mickey throws two more boxes into the cart.
They hit the back wall at the end of the Christmas section, and they both just stand there for a few seconds, staring at the rows and rows of stockings.
“We need new ones,” Mickey says plainly. “Never grabbed the old ones from the house before it sold.”
“Debbie might have them in a box somewhere. She kept a lot of shit from the attic.”
“Maybe.” Mickey shakes his head. “But yours was falling apart at the seams, man.”
Ian blows out a breath. “So, we need new ones.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well…” Ian nods, taking in the display. “Okay.”
It’s a little daunting, with so many options.
Mickey blinks at them. “Which ones do we get?”
“Whichever ones we want, I guess.”
Ian takes the left side, Mickey the right. They start narrowing it down.
Ian picks up a light blue one with snowflakes stitched into the front. It’s big and padded, but it’s not really Christmas-y enough for him.
Mickey grabs a plain red one with white fur-like trim. It’s very traditional, but it’s sort of… bland.
Ian looks at one that could be hand-knit, a multitude of shades of red all blending together.
Mickey picks up one with little bells all along the trim.
There are some options they like better than others, but none of them feel quite right. They slowly make their way to the middle, occasionally thinking out loud and holding up a few for a second opinion, but they put back every single stocking they pick up.
Until they stand in the middle of the display.
Staring back at the stockings with letters machine stitched onto the front.
Ian looks at Mickey, a smile starting to spread across his face.
Mickey nods.
“What color do you want?” Ian asks, looking through one of the racks.
Mickey shrugs. “I don’t know.”
Ian grabs one with a white I stitched on the front, holds it up. “Is red too cliché?”
“No, I like that you’re red,” Mickey teases, reaching over and pulling Ian’s hair.
Ian rolls his eyes. “Ha. Ha.”
Mickey laughs a little, then turns back to the display and wipes the smile off his face.
“You be red, I’ll be green?” he asks.
“Yeah. Okay.”
He and Ian look through the racks until they find a matching green stocking with a white M on the front of it. Ian makes Mickey hold both of them up, and he takes a picture.
He puts it on his Instagram story, and Mickey pretends to hate it.
“It’s gonna look kinda weird,” Mickey muses, still staring at the stockings as he puts them in the cart.
“What?”
“Having only two of these on our fireplace.”
Ian’s brow twitches. He lowers his phone. “Well, there are only two of us,” he says. “…For now.”
He looks at Mickey when he says the second part, tongue darting out to nervously wet his lips.
“Right,” Mickey says slowly. “But until there’s… more than two of us, it’s gonna look weird as fuck.”
He doesn’t know why he’s fixating on this, but he is.
“I don’t think so,” Ian muses.
Mickey scratches his jaw. “You don’t wanna get a few more?”
Ian blinks. “For who?”
“I don’t know.” Mickey says quietly. He reaches out to a smaller, white stocking with a red F stitched into the front. “Could get one for Franny. Maybe one for Fred.”
“Right,” Ian says tentatively, moving closer and resting a hand on his husband’s back. “Except, they don’t live with us.”
“No, but you know the next time Franny comes over, the first thing she’s gonna ask is where’s her stocking.”
“And we’ll remind her that it’s at her house.”
Mickey scratches his head, thumbs at his lip.
Ian tilts his head slightly. “Mickey.”
“It’s fine,” Mickey says, dropping the stocking to fall back against the rest on the rack. “Forget it.”
“No, hey.”
“No, forget I said anything. I didn’t—” Mickey shakes his head, squirms against his husband’s touch. He says, quietly, “I wasn’t trying to say anything.”
Ian wraps his arm around Mickey’s waist. “I know that.”
Mickey exhales, settles.
He’s not even a hundred percent what they’re talking about anymore, if he’s being honest.
“It is gonna be weird with only two of them,” Ian starts, gently squeezing Mickey’s hip. “But it’s… a good weird? Maybe?”
Mickey looks up at him. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Ian’s brow twitches as his eyes roam over Mickey’s face, like he’s looking for a tell in even the smallest of movements, in the lines of his face. It’s like he’s trying to read Mickey’s thoughts, like he’s trying to make sense of something.
Good fucking luck. Mickey doesn’t even understand Mickey’s thoughts right now.
“Look,” Ian starts, “I know I talk a lot about wanting a big family, and I miss living with everybody just as much as you do—”
“Never fucking said I missed that.”
“—but… I don’t know.” Ian shrugs. He pulls Mickey into a loose hug, thumbs rubbing arcs over his lower back. “I kinda like that it’s just us right now. It’s never really been just us, you know?”
Mickey starts to relax into him. “Yeah.”
Ian smiles softly. “It’s kinda nice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Mickey lets himself lean into his husband, getting his arms around Ian’s torso and tucking his face into the crook of his neck.
Ian rocks them back and forth a little bit as they hug. “And if it really does look stupid with just the two of them, we’ll come back tomorrow and buy stockings for the whole fucking family.”
Mickey huffs a laugh, pulls back just enough to see him. “Alright, let’s not go that far.”
Ian grins.
“Sorry,” Mickey mutters, letting Ian go and taking a half step back. “I’m fucking… weird today.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Ian says, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek. He starts pushing the cart towards checkout. “We’re adults. We have adult-like conversations sometimes.”
“Like talking about how to decorate our gay ass apartment?”
“Exactly.”
“Or talking about when we’re having kids without actually talking about it?”
“When?”
“Don’t push it.”
Ian huffs a laugh. “Come on. Let’s go get our fucking tree.”
That night, the apartment looks great.
There’s a medium sized tree in the corner, wrapped in colored lights and tinsel even though the branches haven’t come down yet (they’ll figure that part out next year). The wrapping paper is tucked away in the closet. The balcony is glowing softly outside in the dark.
A Bluetooth speaker plays some Christmas music radio station from where it sits on the fireplace mantel, and two stockings are hung beneath it. One red, one green.
It’s still a rare occurrence, lighting the fireplace in their apartment, but tonight felt like a good time for it, so they turned it on. It makes the living room all warm and toasty.
Mickey’s sitting back on the couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand. The tumbler it sits in has snowflakes painted on the outside, even though it has yet to snow more than half an inch in Chicago this year. It came in a set of two that Ian saw near the checkout in Walmart, and there was no talking him out of getting them.
Mickey then decided that they had to stop and get whiskey on the way home, as well as the tree.
Ian’s own glass sits on the coffee table, ice slowly melting in it. He’s standing by the tree, hanging the last of the red and silver plastic ornaments they bought earlier, humming along to the song playing over the speaker.
Mickey watches him, tired but content. Happy.
“Done,” Ian says, backing away from the last ornament. He puts his hands on his hips. “What do you think?”
Mickey nods his head, sips his drink. “Looks good.”
“Yeah?” Ian smiles, looking back at him. “Does it feel like Christmas in here yet?”
“Looks like Christmas threw up in here.”
“Mick.”
“Santa would be fucking proud,” Mickey deadpans. “Now come here.”
Ian falls into the cushions next to him, letting out a long, slow breath. Mickey lays his hand over Ian’s thigh.
They take a minute to look around the room, surveying their afternoon of hard work.
“We still have to do the lights in our room,” Ian reminds him, looking over at the unopened boxes of lights on the kitchen table.
Mickey hums into his glass. “We can do them tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because tonight we’re gonna sit here,” Mickey says, leaning forward, grabbing Ian’s glass off the table, and handing it to him. “We’re gonna drink our whiskey, you’re gonna put your arm around me, and we’re gonna listen to this stupid ass Christmas music and stare at our fucking tree.”
Ian beams.
He wraps one arm around Mickey’s shoulders, settling back against the couch and shifting until they’re both comfy.
“It really is a nice tree,” Ian muses.
Mickey taps their glasses together. “Only the best for my husband.”
Ian grins.
They sip their whiskey as Winter Wonderland fades out, and Do They Know It’s Christmas? starts up on the radio.
“They look good,” Mickey says after a minute.
“Hm?”
“The stockings,” he says, nodding over towards the fireplace. “They’re not—” He pauses, then says quietly, “They don’t look weird.”
He takes a long sip of his whiskey, swallows it down even though it burns.
“They look good together. Even on their own,” Ian tells him, tightening the arm around Mickey’s shoulders. “Don’t you think?”
Mickey nods. “Yeah. I do.”
Ian kisses the side of his head, lips lingering for longer than they probably should.
“Merry Christmas, Mickey,” Ian whispers.
“It’s November 28th.”
“Why do you have to ruin it?”
“I’m just saying, it’s not even fucking December yet—”
“Shut up.”
Mickey grins at him, tongue poking out between his teeth. He turns more towards his husband, tucks his face against his neck. He kisses him there.
“Merry Christmas, Ian.”